One More Sad Statistic
by KissTheBoy7
Summary: Rosaliecentric. She is just another disappearance, another statistic, an obituary in the paper- and this thing, this boy she's fabricated inside of her, is just one more unborn child out of millions. Nothing special. Oneshot.


**A/N: Believe it or not, I started out- when I was like twelve- writing Twilight fanfiction. Really, really horrible Twilight fanfiction. It was actually awful and I cannot thank myself enough for never posting it online where actual humans could read it. However, I've been rereading the series lately out of sheer boredom and this idea struck me out of nowhere… I like to think that since then I've gotten a lot less nauseatingly horrible though. So enjoy? Tell me if it sucks.**

Disclaimer: _I have absolutely no desire to own Twilight whatsoever. I am not kidding. I just… No._

**One More Sad Statistic**

Everybody thinks that Rosalie Hale is such a bitch. That she is now, will always be and has always been a heartless, prissy piece of work. Self-absorbed and vain, beautiful and cruel, and she can't really argue with any of those assessments because they're true.

She never claimed to be a peach.

No one, no one except possibly Edward, could possibly understand her. And even him… Edward liked to pretend he was so noble and gentlemanly, but he had his prejudices, too.

It's not that she has a particularly good reason to be the way she is. Why should she need an excuse? There is no apology for her behavior, for herself. She has, contrary to popular belief, enough on her mind without bothering to pretend to like that snack Edward has declared his undying love for, or to agree with everything her brothers do.

Rosalie is sharp, to the point, but there are things that none of them know about her still. Not even Edward, who avoids her now more than ever, although he never expressed much interest in her to begin with. There are things that she has managed after all this time to keep to herself.

It's nothing that Jasper can pick up on, a strange feeling in her frozen gut without a name. It's just a reminder. A horrifying phantom sensation left over from the life she once knew, the one that she sometimes remembers, and even more often wishes that she could return to. Human life. Just before her nineteenth birthday.

Just before her wedding.

It's a story that only the three of them know, and only the parts of it that they could bear to listen to, to see. One that she's sure will never be allowed anywhere near precious _Bella_, the object of her brother's misplaced affections, so breakable and so delectable and so very irritating. So human.

How Rosalie wishes that she could be human, too.

It isn't jealousy, per se, because she never wanted Edward in the first place- she just wanted his attention. She wanted everyone's attention, especially now after her transformation, after she'd become this timeless monster destined to live a life of never-ending restraint. At the very least she had Emmett, but even he…

It is difficult to explain how it feels, to have this inkling of life buried inside of her. To know that it will never come to fruition. She knows instinctively that the child would have been a boy, her eternally unborn son- it's one of those things that you can just _sense_ in this body, another of those strange unlabeled emotions. If she stays still for just long enough she can feel him, feel his desperation, feel his anticipation.

He wants to be born, to be loved, to see his mother's face like he can hear her voice. It hurts to know that he never will be.

Emmett was never told the story of Royce and their courtship, partially because he never thought to ask and partially because she forbid the other members of their coven to let it slip to her lover, her mate. Emmett isn't to know that she is bound impossibly to a monster worse than any of them. Royce is dead, anyhow, dead at her own hand.

She had known, even then, that she was killing her child's father.

It had given her a certain satisfaction.

She couldn't blame Carlisle, of course. He had most likely known, and out of all of them she wonders when he looks at her now if she is imagining the anxious edge, as though he's waiting for her to forgive him or to damn him. Perhaps the anticipation, the waiting, is eating away at him as much as any emotion can eat at someone like them. It would be just like him to wait for her to say something, even after all of this time- it was a good seventy years, more, since she'd been changed by him and the events leading up to it, but still he has said nothing.

He probably never will, not unless she brings it up. But she knows she won't.

The baby is not a real one, just a figment of her imagination. He could hardly have had time to have been conceived before she was left, wrecked and bleeding on the street, to await her death. There couldn't possibly have been enough time…

Still, she can't help but wonder if maybe her change had changed him as well. If maybe she will be stuck with this impossible, unsettling ache, this regret that lingers bitterly on the edge of her razor-sharp words, for the rest of her eternity.

He is not a baby, nor will he ever be, but she will always think of him that way. She will always mourn, in every spare moment, for the child that she will never be able to birth.

Emmett is a good enough replacement for now. Forever, maybe, but she doubts she will be able to keep him out of trouble for that long.

This Bella… she doesn't know what she has. Until Edward relents, if he ever does, she won't. She's been caught in the web that they'd unintentionally spun, already falling fast and hard for one of them, for their hideous way of life. She hasn't a thought in her plain little head about what she might be missing down the road.

Rosalie wraps her arms around her middle subtly, a gesture that none of them miss and none of them understand, and stares out the window into the sheeting rain with her perfect lips pursed and her amber eyes cold.

To be human… Just long enough to know if, maybe, this feeling might go away.

To be a mother. To give birth to the child howling for release inside of her arctic womb.

She is just another disappearance, another statistic, an obituary in the paper- and this _thing_, this boy she's fabricated inside of her, is just one more unborn child out of millions. Nothing special.

But Bella, she has a choice.

Her lips slowly curve into a smile, wan but there, and she feels Emmett relax as he sees the relaxation in her posture.

She will have to have a talk with Edward's treat, before Alice's visions can come true.


End file.
